Smoore vows not to work with vape brands that appeal to children

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Coloured vapes

Source: GettyImages_Credit Peter Dazeley

Vape tech firm Smoore has pledged that it will no longer do business with brands that use flavour names, packaging or product designs that are attractive to children.

The firm, which creates the atomisation (vapourisation) technology that is contained within vaping devices, wants the industry to ditch flavours such as ‘Donut’, ‘Gummy Bear’, ‘Slushy’ and ’Rainbow’; as well as stealth products, which could be hidden inside a teenager’s pencil case, and product designs which look like toys, soft drinks or cartoon characters.

It has created a list of flavours that it will not be involved with and is setting up a vape flavour detection squad to monitor the market for new flavours coming onto the market that could be considered as being appealing to minors.

Rex Zhang, strategy director at Smoore, said: “The vape industry represents the best chance the world has ever seen to eradicate deadly cigarettes and we cannot allow this opportunity to be squandered.

“Vaping was invented for this very purpose and we need to ensure that it is focussed on the adult smoking market.

“There is absolutely no place for any vaping product to look like a child’s toy, be shaped like a much-loved cartoon character or iconic children’s game or be filled with liquid called ‘Gummy Bear, Cotton Candy, Strawberry Milkshake or Starry Violet.”

Every single company under the Smoore’s umbrella has been ordered to undertake a root and branch review to ensure that none of its products or those of its customers on the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) side of its business could be seen as appealing to children.

If Smoore finds that brand owners have any products which it deems to be child-friendly, it has proposed that it will work with them so that immediate corrective action can be taken, but that it could ultimately discontinue all cooperation if changes are not made.

Zhang added: “We want other companies to follow our lead on this because we have to ensure that we stop young people vaping and we strongly believe that this must happen regardless of what the government ends up doing.

“We cannot squander this opportunity to help secure a smoke-free generation and, in order to do this, we need both the general public and governments on our side.

“It is only by uniting as an industry from beginning to end and making a clear commitment to doing all in our power to tackle youth vaping that we will be able to achieve this.

“The UK has always been seen as a world-leading example in fair and proportionate regulation of the vape industry and let’s not give them any reason at all to move from that position.”

As part of the move to tackle child appealing vape devices, Smoore has also called for more standardisation of product sizes and shapes which it believes will also help “faster disassembly at waste treatment sites, helping to increase recycling rates of vapes”.

In addition, the firm stated that it wants to see every batch of disposable vapes and pre-filled pods being randomly sampled for product compliance, with whole batches, typically 100,000 devices, being rejected if any number of non-compliant products are identified.

Such measures were necessary to motivate the compliant brands and producers while punishing the offenders, it claimed. A strict, yet open, marketplace will encourage more innovations in the industry to create products that will serve its job even better with every new generation, stated the firm.

The non-exhaustive list of flavours that Smoore has identified as being child friendly includes: